While Toronto routed the Knicks in the regular season, winning three games by an average margin of 15 points, the Heat were as lucky as a Larry Johnson bank shot to have won the season series.

Only Tim Hardaway’s buzzer-beating, one-handed heave from beyond the 3-point line in overtime allowed the Heat to steal the series. In the other Heat home victory, the Knicks collapsed after racing to a 20-point first-quarter lead in an 85-76 loss.

Just like in the Toronto series, the Knicks enter their second-round battle never having won a game in the opponent’s new arena.

The Knicks, who swept Toronto at Air Canada Centre, renew their four-year war with Miami on Sunday at 12:30 p.m. in Game 1 at American Airlines Arena. Game 2 will be next Tuesday, before the series shifts to the Garden for Games 3 and 4 on May 12 and May 14. The teams’ last three playoff matchups have gone the distance, with the Knicks winning the last two years.

“They dominated us in the regular season, just like Toronto,” Chris Childs said in the Knicks’ locker room on Sunday.

The biggest upset of the four regular-season meetings is that no punches were thrown. The closest altercation came at the Garden on Feb. 6, when Marcus Camby went up for a layup against P.J. Brown, the former wrestling partner of Charlie Ward.

From behind, reserve point guard Anthony Carter pushed Camby, who landed awkwardly and crashed to the court. Camby, who strained his anterior cruciate ligament, didn’t play for five weeks.

“In the past, there have been a lot fights, talk and rhetoric,” Jeff Van Gundy said. “But the animosity has developed into a mutual respect. I’m sure it will be hot and heated. But I think we’ll see hard, clean play.”

Don’t count on it.

Consider the venemous words from years past between these clubs, not to mention the 1997 playoff brawl triggered by Brown’s flip of Ward and the 1998 Alonzo Mourning/Larry Johnson bout that ended with Van Gundy hanging onto one of Zo’s legs.

“I don’t like them, not even a little bit,” Brown said in ’97. “It’s all that arrogance, like they’re Gods or something.”

Or how about Pat Riley’s remark after Mourning-LJ: “The only bleeping thing I’m disappointed in is that Zo didn’t connect when he tried to punch that bleep in the face.”

Or Hardaway, summing up his relationship last year with former Golden State teammate Latrell Sprewell, by saying: “We had a lot of verbal wars in Golden State, but we didn’t get to fisticuffs. Yet, it was going that way.”

Even though Riley warned the media yesterday that there would be inflammatory remarks from him or his players, tensions somehow rise when these two combatants meet.

“All I know is I’m undefeated against them,” Sprewell said Sunday.

In the season’s first matchup, Nov. 14 at the Garden, the Heat clobbered the Knicks 94-88 in what Van Gundy called, “the most lopsided six-point game you’ll ever see.”

The Knicks shot 39 percent, fell behind 18 in the third quarter and were 17 points down with 5:20 to play.

Patrick Ewing was still taking his time rehabbing his Achilles’ tendinitis, allowing Mourning to throw down 25 points on 11-of-17 shooting.

“Tonight was pathetic,” Childs said when it was over.

The Knicks got even on Feb. 6, belting the Heat at the Garden, 94-80. Mourning was horrible, looking intimidated by Ewing, scoring 12 points on 5-of-12 shooting.

On Feb. 28, in their first game in Miami’s new arena, the Knicks played without Camby and Charlie Ward and the Heat was without the sore-ankled Mourning. With Duane Causewell starting at center, the Heat escaped after falling behind by 20 points in the first quarter.

The Heat rallied to cut the margin to 10 at halftime before Sprewell and Houston disappeared in the second half.

The Miracle in Miami occurred April 9, when Hardaway’s prayer of a shot with Childs draped all over him all but clinched the Atlantic Division title for the Heat. Miami celebrated on the court as if it had just won the championship.

Riley called it destiny, noting there were 4.7 seconds left on the clock before the inbounds pass to Hardaway – nearly the exact time left before Houston’s miraculous series-winning rim-glass bouncer last spring in Round 1.